Posted
by
kdawsonon Sunday December 13, 2009 @08:35PM
from the crying-to-the-bank dept.

kamikazearun sends in a TorrentFreak analysis that begins "Claims by the MPAA that illegal downloads are killing the industry and causing billions in losses are once again being shredded. In 2009, the leading Hollywood studios made more films and generated more revenue than ever before, and for the first time in history the domestic box office grosses will surpass $10 billion. ... [N]either the ever-increasing piracy rates nor the global recession could prevent Hollywood having its best year ever in 2009. With an estimated $10.6 billion in consumer spending at the US and Canadian box office, the movie industry will break the 2008 record by nearly a billion dollars."

"We could have made 20 Billion if it weren't for all of those pirates!"

Don't worry, they'll simply sue ten thousand people for a million dollars each to get their money back. They may need a government bailout in the meantime. Nearly every single one of your elected officials have enjoyed soft money from the MPAA to ensure that everyone rolls over and sits when the MPAA instructs them to.

That's unlikely. They'll claim they spend more than ever to make movies and just barely make a profit. What they think is "We need new laws and ways to prevent consumers from watching the same movie twice without paying both times, watching movies on hardware not made by the same companies that own the movie studios or watching movies not made by the big studios."

"We couldn't have made 10 Billion if it weren't for all of those music pirates!"

Fixed that for you.

And I mean it. Movies have the benefit of being social occasions, where groups of kids go to see a movie and share their thoughts after etc. It's a fraction the cost of a concert by the pop musicians they download, and recorded music doesn't stand a chance for their entertainment dollar. "Hrm, should I actually buy one of the 500 CD's I've downloaded, or should I try to make out with that new girl during Twilight, having already downloaded it too to see that it sucks..."

I don't like the movie studios much but the article is highly misleading, it only mentions total revenue and if you dig into the articles the article itself references it clearly shows a declining profit per movie and less movies being made which kinda supports the studios positions. Personally though I think the declining profit is because most movies made nowadays are utter shit.

That doesn't mean "movies are shit", because with fewer movies and the biggest gross revenue ever, they have either had the higher ticket prices or more tickets sold. Since 2008 was about 10 billion and 2009 is ~10.6 billon we're looking at an 6% increase in ticket prices or ticket numbers. Probably a mix of the two.

But if fewer movies were released in 2009 vs 2008, then the 6% increase in ticket prices/ticket numbers won't cover it.

No, but it is justification to call the "problem" of copyright infringement insignificant.

It is also justification for the viewpoint that copyright as it stands now is more than adequate to ensure more production of works. Were it not, they would have produced LESS each year. Since that is the only Constitutional purpose of copyright, we need add no more protections.

And it shall remain insignificant as long as the common person cannot see a theatre-screen-sized, hd quality rip of movies. What I love is that noone ever blames their lack of profit in either recording industry on the possibility that their product just wasn't worth buying....

When Stan Lee had to sue to get his cut of the proceeds from SpiderMan, I started to look at the MPAA's kvetching about pirateswith a jaundiced eye. If they want us to care about alleged copyright infringement, then don't try to fuck over the icons that made usinto fans and made them rich(er).

Also, people seem to always forget that the original purpose (however flawed) of copyright was ostensibly to protect the authors from.... the publishers, distributors and all sorts of assorted middle-men, since at that time those were the only people (and I use the term loosely) who had access to equipment capable of mass duplication of works of art.

Fast forward 200 years or so and you have the artists back in the dog-house and the assorted middle-men controlling everything. Which only encourages them to bray louder about being robbed by "copyright violators" while stiffing the artists at every opportunity... a grand monument to the power of corruption of laws and societies by shameless, vicious, malignant greed.

Incidentally this behaviour, of preemptively and rabidly accusing everyone else in sight of the very crimes one is committing himself, is very common amongst various villains in all walks of villainy, such as career politics for example.

> So, the success of the Music / Entertainment Industry is justification to pirate?> We hate them and can rip them off because they are rich? Well, because that's what> the whining here sounds like.

No. It's justification to ignore their drama queen antics and cries for further legal concessions.

Clearly the status quo is fine for them. They don't need any new laws. They don't even needmany of the recent changes to the law. They certainly don't require mass prosecutions, thewholesale destruction of p

For a while I have been arguing that the debate should not be framed in the "innovator versus freeloader" view but in a "constitutional rights and individual property rights versus expansive intellectual property" view.
Most Americans do not accept the idea that you have a right to give away a copy of a song to anyone who wants it. While we hear constantly about those numbers that "40% of internet users said they saw nothing wrong with pirating music" we cannot go by that. Americans are just like any other people; when we think we can get away with something that doesn't seem to directly hurt someone we do it. Downloading bootlegs doesn't seem to hurt anyone, but it can.
If I had bootlegged the entire new Android Lust album instead of buying it on iTunes I would have not sent the chick behind AL any money. iTunes allowed me to send her maybe $2 for the album which I paid $10, probably a good $5 less than what I would have paid for a CD copy.
We need to stress to the government that iTunes, not more legislation, is the key to getting the system working. We need to show them that bands like Metallica refuse to do their part because they want an all or nothing. Buy 20-30 songs on iTunes and you give Apple more ammo to counter the claims that piracy has no solution. They can just shrug in front of Congress and say "it's not our side, the legal downloading side, that has dropped the ball. They refuse to let people buy their tracks one by one because they want them to buy them all or nothing."
There will always be politicians who will rail against piracy and ignore iTunes and other legal services, but many politicians will just look at these industries and say "the mechanisms are in place, why aren't you being a team player, why are you coming to us for help when there are companies dying to make the market work for you?" Politicans tend to be lazy, just look at how many Senate votes that John Kerry has missed in the past 12 years. Something like 1000 or more a year according to Fox News.
We can appeal to the public by pointing out the supremacy of the 1st amendment over Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. The first amendment was ratified later so it supercedes everything in the original constitution, just as all parts of the constitution must be read in the context of the Bill of Rights.
We should also point out how anti-backup provisions and attitudes like Jack Valenti's "if you want a backup, buy another copy" are against common sense, American tradition and capitalist principles. I have yet to read of a prominent capitalist theorist who would support the DMCA. Rand, Ricardo, Hayek and Smith are probably spinning in their graves over the DMCA and similar "seller protection legislation."
The hollywood position is built on pure, unprincipled greed. Defeating it only means that we need to be consistant and show the public where the law is going to start biting them in the ass if they don't care now.

If the box office receipts were way DOWN, someone here would post, "Clearly, the Hollywood moguls are out of touch with what moviegoers are interest in seeing. Maybe they should stop taking two martini lunches and doing coke in the back of stretch limos with starlets, and stop hiring yesterday's stars like Tom Cruise for $20 million a flick. Hello? That, not downloading, is what ails Hollywood today".

And every post contributing in support of that conclusion would be modded up. Maybe we'll get that a yea

Of course Slashdot is going to spin everything its own way; what else would you expect? I don't really know enough about the numbers, but there is a saying around here that correlation != causation; I would caution that just because Hollywood is setting box office records doesn't mean piracy doesn't hurt them. Obviously it doesn't to the extent they would like you to believe, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if piracy were not an option; would more people buy more copies, or would they just make d

While trying to avoid putting too much spin on it, I'd rather just look at it in context.

$10 billion dollars means they took $1.50 from every man, woman and child on the plant.

While piracy may be hurting them, don't you think that a $10 billion profit means perhaps, just perhaps, the cost of their product is STILL TOO HIGH ?

And if they did a little bit of supply / demand analysis, by maybe only skinning a buck instead of a buck fifty, piracy might actually go down as the product would be *more* accessible (read cheaper) for the masses ?

There was an article a while back (no I can't find it with the 2 minutes of searching I did) where a magazine compared the ticket sales of economic recessions during the 90's and early 2000's. The summation of the article was that even with major blockbuster films, like Starwars ep 1, Hollywood made less money than the year before because times were good and people were doing things besides going to the movies, but in economic downturns they actually made more money. The theory was that audiences will attend movies to distract them from all the problems that they have instead of stewing in them.

I'll post it if I can find it but the laziness is running deep tonight.

I don't agree with that theory. I'd say that going to a movie is simply cheaper than other forms of entertainment. People want entertainment no matter what the economy or what's going on. That's why births tend to spike 9 months after a days-long power outage. Not a whole lot else to do to entertain yourself;)

Back in college I saw an ad before a movie where a stunt double, key grip and other low paid stagehands were filmed in front of their families, eating and doing things with them. Then they would look up and say something to effect of, "I can't feed my family. Because thieves steal my work online."

Someone should make an anti-anti-piracy ad with the same exact thing except when they look up they say, "I can't feed my family... because even though my employer posts record revenues, the justice system makes you are a perfectly legitimate scapegoat."

Odds that the profits from this revenue make it back to the people who genuinely need it to keep the system healthy? Slim to none. Executive producer gets more executive while life risking stunt double gets poorer.

Back in college I saw an ad before a movie where a stunt double, key grip and other low paid stagehands were filmed in front of their families, eating and doing things with them. Then they would look up and say something to effect of, "I can't feed my family. Because thieves steal my work online."

If I remember correctly, the amusing part of that is that the only ones that get paid royalties are the big-name groups, like the writer, director (I think), and actors. I don't think any of the construction workers, camera operators, or costume designers get anything other than a straight salary.

There's a spreadsheet you can download from the Screen Australia website - it's called the "standard short film budget" (there's one for feature-length, too).

People like writer, producer and director are "above the line" items, and everyone else is "below the line".

All the "below the line" items start at union award rates, and "above the line" items start at 10% of the budget (i.e. add up everything else, then add 10% for each person in that category). It's only a starting point - obviously anyone with a na

"If I remember correctly, the amusing part of that is that the only ones that get paid royalties are the big-name groups, like the writer, director (I think), and actors. I don't think any of the construction workers, camera operators, or costume designers get anything other than a straight salary."

This confused a LOT of file sharing enthusiasts back when those ads were running. You're right, of course, that the trade and craft folks are paid on a salary, but the straw man here is assuming that the ads we

> That theory in itself invites enough debate without having to throw in the "the salaried employees have already been paid" straw man.

It's not a straw man.

Past a certain point, YOU PERSONALLY are not going to benefit from any more sales of the product even if YOU PERSONALLY contributed to it's production.

Either way, it's probably not going to matter. A bad film is going to bomb and a good film is going to make profits for the studio that they studio will never admit to. Piracy won't change that. All Piracy does is inflate the sense of entitlement felt by the high level management at the studio. They mistake demand for the product at the ZERO price point as real value.

Scenario:Movie studio office, 1930's style. Large expensive looking desk, semi-naked woman lying in it. Big fat movie executive wearing a 1930's style suit, holding a large lit cigar in his hand sitting on a chair behind the desk. Behind him, a window shows a sunny Californian day, with some palm-trees and an expensive sports car visible.Around the office, other similar looking man are sitting in sofas surrounded by beautiful semi-claded women. Expensive looking sculptures and paintings are spread all over the office (possibly including one or two well known paintings).

Action:Camera pans around the office, centers on the executive sitting in the chair with the desk (and woman) in front and the window behind.Executive snorts a line of coke from the woman's belly, turns to the camera and says:"I can't feed my family. Because thieves steal my work online."

People are still willing to pay to go to the movies for the superior screen/sound and crowd experience. Although the impact is far less than they claim, I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.

People are still willing to pay to go to the movies for the superior screen/sound and crowd experience. Although the impact is far less than they claim, I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.

Overall people don't mind going to movies. After all, if the film is good and the projectionist is good, then it is (or should be) a great experience. It's not the same thing as the recorded music business, which was never about providing the total experience like movies have been for ages. I suppose a better parallel to a movie is a music concert. Again, it's about the whole experience and people don't mind paying for that. (Well, most people anyway. Enough to make it potentially very profitable.)

Although the impact is far less than they claim, I would imagine pirated movies hurt dvd sales more than box office, at least in the US.

Yes, and it should.

If I want to pirate a movie, I can go to a single site, find multiple options (1080p, 720p, ipod, ect) for just about every movie in existence. All of which are "in stock" and most of which I can download to my computer in less time it would take to drive to the store. The movie is presented to me without unskippable ads, without worry of scratching or losing, and can be archived without taking up space on my shelf.

As most technical people are very aware, if I'm selling a product in a marketplace where a virtually identical product is available, I need to add value in order to get people to purchase through me instead of the competition. Adding value for movie studios is easy. They are selling legal copies and supporting the people who made the movies. The added value is already there. However, to add value, they need to provide an equivalent experience.

Imainge if when you bought a DVD, it had no copy restrictions, it contained on it versions formatted for copying to a hard drive and for various smaller players (such as the iPhone), and instead of the "FBI WARNING: IF U STEEL THIS WE'LL COME AND GET YOU" (which only people who have already paid see), you saw one of the main actors saying, "Hi, this is Denzel Washington. I realize that you could have downloaded this illegally, so I just want to express my personal thanks to you for supporting the movie industry by opting to pay for this DVD instead. Please enjoy the show."

Piracy would probably only go down a few percent, but you could probably sell the DVDs, but overall DVD sales would grow, because people would be happy buying a DVD, instead of feeling screwed (as I always do).

To me, it is remarkable that for an industry that has been around for more than a century, is this large, and has become so integral to the lives of North Americans, that somehow, a growth rate of over 11% is achievable.

This back and forth about piracy and morality and P2P is such bullshit.

Everyone -- yes, every goddamn one -- knows that the Hollywood/MPAA (and the RIAA music fight) boils down to one thing: money in the pockets of executives. That's it. It's only about technology insofar how that technology impacts the bottom-line. It's not about art. It's about making sure a select group of executives make sure they can keep the mortgage payments on their Bel-Air mansions and can keep memberships in their country clubs.

In all fairness, the average actor in the new SW was probably better than in the old. That being said, the fact that Hayden Christiansen was out-acted by Mark Hamil was pretty sad(Hamil makes a pretty good voice actor, but damn he couldn't act).

I'll give you a pass on being whipped if you got blown after seeing Twilight with her.If she suggests that you read the books so she can debate them with you - and you do - then she's the onewith the penis ( if you're living The Crying Game, don't tell us, please ).

From the article:
"The 2009 total was aided by a 28 cent increase in ticket prices from the year before to an average $7.46.

The total number of tickets sold, or admissions, is expected to reach 1.4 billion, up from 1.34 billion in 2008. Still, that figure is not expected to break the record 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, said Hollywood.com Box Office."

The reason for the higher revenue? Higher ticket prices. Ticket sales are down 12% since 2002. If you look at a long-term graph of ticket sales, you can see that it's been basically flat in the 2000s, compared to upper single-digit or double-digit growth nearly every year between 1970 and 2000. It's pretty much been stagnant since 2002.

1980->1990 = 83% Growth in 10 years, average of 8.2% per year
1990->2002 = 82% Growth in 12 years, average of 6.8% per year
Then, *mysteriously*, something happened around 2002:
2002->2009 = 9.2% Growth in 7 years, 1.3% per year (using the $10 billion number, not the $9,782.4 for 2009)
To put that in perspective, 1.3% is less than the growth of inflation.

In other news, the number of AIDS patients is higher than ever, and yet, the average lifespan continues to grow. I'm sure we all can see the correlation here: AIDS = longer lifespans. Torrent Freak spins reality even more than FOX news. I wish Slashdot wasn't such a fan of the pro-pirate spin.

The reason for the higher revenue? Higher ticket prices. Ticket sales are down 12% since 2002. If you look at a long-term graph of ticket sales, you can see that it's been basically flat in the 2000s, compared to upper single-digit or double-digit growth nearly every year between 1970 and 2000. It's pretty much been stagnant since 2002.

1980->1990 = 83% Growth in 10 years, average of 8.2% per year
1990->2002 = 82% Growth in 12 years, average of 6.8% per year
Then, *mysteriously*, something happened around 2002:

Nine... *The audience leans forward, waiting for Myoral Candidate Lois Griffin's next word*
Eleven. *Raucous Cheering*
It was near the end of 2001, and people were sheepishly afraid of gathering in large groups (except at church). Once they stared renting DVDs more at home, they realized that they liked it better.

Or, maybe it was the advent of the HDTVs

Or: The reason ticket sales are down 12% since 2002? Higher ticket prices.

What you are saying is that the Movie Industry made more movies, and more money than ever before, despite their claims of piracy hooligans destroying their business, but that it's all an illusion based on your rigorous statistical analysis, and out of line reference to the horrible disease, AIDS.

I find piracy an unlikely culprit largely because the quality is just so damn low usually, people use tv piracy mostly for time shifting and "nation shifting", but everyone uses TiVo whenever available, and movies start out higher quality, so your losing much much more.

I'd bet the single biggest reason is that television and home theaters have cut into their sales.

There are now more shows that more people *perceive* as high quality, more shows are designed to addict people (X Files, Lost, etc.), comedy show

The $10 billion number is gross revenue. It does not take into effect the costs of making more movies than ever before. Never mind that making more movies means spending more money and that movie budgets are also increasing.

The $10 billion number is gross revenue. It does not take into effect the costs

Cry me a fucking river.

Do you understand the basics of economy? Spend more, you usually bigger sum back too. It doesn't mean the income percentage is a lot larger. This is even more true when everything has to be larger, better and more impressive all the time.

The only reason Hollywood really survives is due to the masses who have no idea what a buck is worth, and are willing to part with a lot of them for a couple hours spent staring at a screen where the same plots are played out over and over again by different actors.

Who are YOU to judge what is worth some bucks for OTHER people and what they might find fun? I also hope you understand that not everyone who works in movies/tv business are filthy rich. Sure, if you're an idiot, you might think that everyone makes millions per movie for a

I think that a lot of this "piracy" business that the MPAA and RIAA is a load of crap. For example, one of the loudest voices against Napster (before the became "legit") was Metallica. In one of the tape inserts for one of their albums (I forget which one), they claim outright that they used to trade tapes back and forth and copy them all the time before they made it big. So, it is OK when they commited piracy, but it isn't now when they are a target of it?
I'm glad their last album sucked....

Its also okay for the CRIA to make and sell compilation and live track CDs from artists and just place them on a "Pending to be notified and paid" list. Of course they are now facing a 6 billion dollar lawsuit for this but are claiming that they shouldn't have to pay this.

Who said anything about it being beneficial? That's a rather piss-poor strawman.

The argument is that despite Hollywood decrying piracy as being be downfall of the movie industry, that they were losing money hand over fist, that ordinary people in the industry were losing their jobs left, right and centre because of it, that the entire economy of America was in danger because of these dangerous pirates, who were probably also funding international terrorism and all paedophiles as well, they've somehow managed to make record profits during a substantial recession.

This is great news for the small percentage of movies that get theatrical release. But DVD numbers are in the toilet, and that's a critical revenue stream for all your low budget and indie stuff. I'm loathe to imply that piracy does or doesn't have anything to do with the problem but this article does not paint an accurate picture of where the movie business is at.

I love how Hollywood just sends Michael Bay out with the single mission to fill cinemas.

If Hollywood really just wanted to make a quick buck, they'd just throw together a trailer full of tidal waves, nuclear bomb test footage, explosions, robots, Michael Bay's name, then release the obligatory blockbuster movie trailer with such delightful quips as: "in a world... explosion... awesome... teenage cleavage... het-er-o-sex-u-al... stuff you liked when you were twelve..."

It doesn't even matter if there is an actual movie. It will make BILLIONS.

I think its been maybe 10 years since I've actually gone to a movie... The whole idea of having to travel somewhere to get video content, well, that's been lame since...

People have 'dates' with others every now and then, and the cinema is a nice place to go during the process. In fact the cinema can turn dating from a potentially-stressful process into a more relaxed, passive and entertaining process. It can even provide something worth discussing afterwards.

During these 'dates' ambiance is a valuable quality, so perhaps dinner in a restaurant and a film at the cinema trumps what the basement-media-room affords. At least as an alternative for some folks.

Wait....a "date" is where you go and sit in the dark, so you can't see the other person, and don't talk to them for an hour or two? Really?Mine tend to be more along the lines of inviting someone over for dinner, talking, rubbing elbows during prep work, laughter over wining and dining, and enjoying the ability to see and talk to each other the whole time.

I'd make a joke about typical slashdot ideas of dating revolving around not seeing or talking to the other person, but that'd just be rud

So, wait, you and your potential mates are so insecure and immature that you constantly need to be giving and receiving physical contact and interaction? You haven't grown up enough or don't appreciate the other person enough to just be in their presence from time to time? In the words of Mia Wallace: "That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence."

Correction: a "date" is where you go and sit in the dark, so other people can't see you doing things other than talking for an hour or two.

Not that the sibling post is wrong, mind you, there's also something to be said for simply enjoying a personal pasttime alongside a person you appreciate and ocassionally engaging in some silent communication, but they're also *such* great places for letting a teenager's hormones run wild my definition cannot be easily dismissed;)

Soo... Sitting in a room full of people eating anonymous food, followed by sitting in another room full of people--this time with clear physical boundaries between you--trumps sitting in a room with just you two eating perhaps home-cooked food, followed by sitting in another room alone snuggling on a sofa, with an even more intimate room within 10 seconds' walking distance?

Soo... Sitting in a room full of people eating anonymous food, followed by sitting in another room full of people--this time with clear physical boundaries between you--trumps sitting in a room with just you two eating perhaps home-cooked food, followed by sitting in another room alone snuggling on a sofa, with an even more intimate room within 10 seconds' walking distance?

Some women like to snuggle in public (and a movie theater counts). Also, the seats in most theaters have retractable arm-rests these days. Choose a theater close to one person's home.

Gold value skyrocket while there are recession. In 2009, the gold price went up around 25% (in USD) while there`s been a general deflation of the US market. You should use the inflation, which takes into account much more different values to compare year to year.